Tizen 3.0 update could introduce a nasty bug to your Gear S3

Last week, Samsung started rolling out the much-requested Tizen 3.0 Value Pack update for the Gear S3 classic and Gear S3 frontier. A number of owners have since reached out to SamMobile, claiming that their battery life has taken a significant hit since installing the release.

It’s unclear what’s causing the issue and why it isn’t showing up for all users, including our team, but we’ve reached out to Samsung in a bid to obtain some more information and to ultimately make it aware of the bug. We will, of course, update this post if/when we hear back.

In the meantime, we’d recommend factory resetting your Gear S3 classic or Gear S3 frontier after installing the Tizen 3.0 Value Pack upgrade. That will fix a frustrating bug preventing you from using customized watchfaces—and could also curb the battery-related issue.

Samsung should release a maintenance update

At the end of the day, Samsung will need to release a fully-fledged maintenance update to patch the issue; however, there’s no telling how long that will take—so you may need to plug your device in to recharge at least once a day—preferably at night—for the foreseeable future.

Pathetic condition of Gear S2 also the same. Charge goes from 80% to 50% in an 5Hours. brightness is kept 3 and screen saver is off and always connected to phone via Bluetooth LE.. Even though battery is not good on GEAR S2 Classic. samsung needs to something.

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7 months ago

jtOttawa

I note Samsung has pushed out an update in Canada this morning to address battery life (and hopefully the charging bug).

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7 months ago

warlockba

Not “could”, “will” but hey Samsung fanboys never learn (seems to me neither do I, as I kept buying their stuff). It’s almost exactly one year later after the Gear S3 release, newer competition to their older lines was released (the Gear Sport) so of course we get an update to see how the new watch looks like, and to kill the older one faster (seems they configured the wear and tear feature a bit to steep, so they die too fast now 🙂 ). I’m under the impression they are constantly doing this on purpose – already since I… Read more »

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8 months ago

paulg117

i have the s3 too and i have experienced the battery drain issue and the battery overheating issue…. ill pop it on charge it within minutes it will go nuts claming the battery is to hot even if it barely feels warm, ill turn it off and will experience the same issue again with the battery claiming to be overheating… ive seen people talking of the green lights staying on for heartrate monitor, mine does this aswell but i have mine set to persistent heartrate monitoring but it turns off when i remove the watch from my wrist….

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8 months ago

o0MHJ0o

I’ve noticed a significant decrease in battery life and a constant change password pop up for emails or something. Very annoying!

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8 months ago

n900mixalot

I haven’t noticed any of these issues. WiFi version in the US. Battery life is the same, seems to be working the same as it did before.

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8 months ago

cjmawuana

After this update I can’t leave my gear s3 on the charger overnight and expect it to be fully charged in the morning anymore. It refuses to charge sometimes or drains the battery or refuses to charge fully and sometimes overheats when the watch is off while charging – very frustrating!. Notifications are now poor and S Health functions are very bad now (auto detect walking and floors). Factory reset doesnt seem to fix it

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8 months ago

jtOttawa

I found a suggestion in another forum to do a master reset via Recovery mode using the hardware keys – and at least so far this seems to have solved the charging issue! It now appears to cycle properly. Here are the steps (remember, this is also a factory reset, so it will wipe all your apps, data etc. from the watch; mine is backed up via Gear Manager so I restore it after resetting): Back up data on the internal memory. Turn the Gear S3 off. Press and hold the Power key until REBOOTING displays at the bottom of… Read more »

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8 months ago

cjmawuana

Trying that as soon as possible. grateful for the help

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8 months ago

jtOttawa

Darnit – came home to the flashing red light on the charger again – but I noticed it had taken an auto heart rate measure, and there have been issues with the heart rate sensor as well as a result of this update (at one point mine was flashing non-stop, and I had to reboot). So with that in mind, I will see if I can shut that feature off and see if that helps.

Good to hear! I find mine is cycling properly now for the most part, but again this morning the charger was flashing – although the watch was at 95%, so it charged properly most of the night. I also unplugged the charger at one point for 30 seconds or so to let it reset, and that seemed to help – so I am hopeful it’s just a glitch we can clear ourselves. I’ll keep experimenting and if I find something that seems to fix it more or less permanently for me I’ll let you know.

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8 months ago

jtOttawa

OK, so there definitely appears to be an issue with the Auto HR monitor – not surprising given how wonky this was acting immediately after the update (at one point mine was on continuously, and others reported the same – the green lights on the back of the watch flashing constantly, even when not on the wrist – which might have been the source of the high battery drain and overheating people were reporting). With Auto HR on (‘Frequent’ is the lowest setting), my watch won’t charge properly – with it turned off, it seems to charge normally. Auto HR… Read more »

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8 months ago

jtOttawa

Note that Samsung has pushed out an update in Canada this morning to address battery life (and hopefully the charging bug).

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7 months ago

vanillasky

Same issue over here. Usualy watch was discharging from 5am to 6pm from 100% to 80%. Yesterday it lost 45%. Battery life became really poor. I hope they are aware of this and will fix it asap

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8 months ago

svkhris

Does anyone know if Samsung Pay was introduced with Tizen 3.0 update in Gear S3 Indian version? I don’t see that still in my Gear after the Tizen update. So bad it’s been an year since its released but still no samsung pay option. So much money that Samsung charges but meagre support. Seems all corporates are in this mode. Limiting the features and playing with Customer’s sentiment & emotion.

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8 months ago

jtOttawa

It wasn’t included for Canada – no idea why they wouldn’t enable on the watch if we can use it on phone – does anyone know the reason for this?

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8 months ago

aaronlafferty

The other issue that seems to be plaguing some users as well is the watch repeatedly asking you to set and EAS pin. Doing so it will then ask you to set it up again. I posted this in the Samsung + app and had quite a few others experiencing this. The PIN setup request is random. Very frustrating. I have dont a factory reset which only takes about 5 min to do and it still is happening as well as bad battery drain.

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8 months ago

jtOttawa

In addition to the battery drain issue (which improved following a reset, but still is not back to what it was before the update, especially at idle), the update appears to have messed up the charging algorithm. My Gear S3 Frontier will charge to 100%, and the light on the charger will turn green – but after the charger shuts off and it dips below that, it won’t charge normally again back up to 100%. Instead, the charger flashes red and the S3 starts to discharge – every time. So, in other words, you can’t just leave it on the… Read more »

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8 months ago

redgumtv

Doing a factory reset is a pain in the butt. You can spend hours going through a new setup and this is the 21st century. We need to be better than that.
Doing the install sucked up 30/40% of battery life and for the first day or two I was down to 2 days running time. Now back to 3+ days running most things other than “always on”.
Also found some facets of Samsung Health didn’t run properly (Floors) but a patch yesterday has corrected that now.Appears everything is back to normal with only slightly shorter battery time.

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8 months ago

faridra

With bluetooth and wifi completely turned off, my frontier dropped from 100% to 89% in 6 hours at night (after factory reset!)
Connecting to bluetooth will eat the battery…
1 hour bluetooth connection uses 6% battery even while allways on display is off…

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8 months ago

DHTML7

My S3 seems to have settled down this week with standard use being slowly back to 3 days. Still keeping eyes on it though.